


"queen" is now synonymous with "distressed teen helper"

by petalprose



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Explaining Puberty To Someone Who Didn't Know What A Birthday Was, Gen, Humor, Misunderstandings, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21616867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalprose/pseuds/petalprose
Summary: "Dealing with crises is something one should expect and prepare for, as Queen. Queen Angella creates contingency plans for every possible catastrophe—a Horde ambush, a spy, a shortage of food in the Kingdom, civil unrest; you understand. She must be ready for anything that may come her way.Now, raising a daughter, raising a child, also comes with problems one must be ready to deal with: the first time Glimmer ever trips and hurts herself, the etiquette she must learn as a princess, the loss of her father; others still that Angella finds crop up every day. For example: her daughter’s worried friend, who has just burst into the throne room."-in which Adora extremely misunderstands why Bow's voice has been breaking, and comes to the Queen with news of the urgent matter. edit: check the notes for the link to a comic by my friend!
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	"queen" is now synonymous with "distressed teen helper"

Dealing with crises is something one should expect and prepare for, as Queen. Queen Angella creates contingency plans for every possible catastrophe—a Horde ambush, a spy, a shortage of food in the Kingdom, civil unrest; you understand. She must be ready for anything that may come her way.

Now, raising a daughter, raising a child, also comes with problems one must be ready to deal with: the first time Glimmer ever trips and hurts herself, the etiquette she must learn as a princess, the loss of her father; others still that Angella finds crop up every day. For example: her daughter’s worried friend, who has just burst into the throne room.

“Your Majesty!” Adora shouts, all but stumbling in, “I have terrible news!”

The doors collide with the walls behind them. Angella is already halfway out of her throne. “Adora?” she asks, “What’s going on?”

“It’s the Horde—“ Angella’s heart lurches, today had barely even begun, the guards are still changing position, ”—they must have done something to the water supply, or something—“

“The water supply? Adora, slow down—“

“I’ve been quiet about it for a while since I noticed it, since I’d only really seen Bow affected, but your Majesty, this must be serious,” says Adora, coming to an abrupt stop at what she must think is an acceptable distance to be from the Queen of Bright Moon herself. Angella meets her halfway, where she is beginning to alternate between gesturing wildly and wringing her hands. “Bow’s voice keeps breaking, and I can’t stay quiet about it anymore because I heard it crack three times in the same sentence just a while ago, and I can’t pinpoint exactly what the cause of it is but it _must_ be the water supply.” She looks up at Queen Angella expectantly.

The Queen who is, at the present moment, beginning to put the pieces of Adora’s panic together. Never let it be said that Queen Angella was not a quick thinker. “Adora,” she says, voice level, “could you explain this to me further?”

Adora launches into her explanation nigh-immediately after being given permission. “Your majesty, I’ve been noticing Bow’s voice crack more and more lately,” she says, so serious Angella’s worry stops fading and lingers. “Ever since he became the leader on all tech advances for the Rebellion he’s been looking more stressed and tired, and I think the Horde may be targeting him specifically because of his position.”

“Right.” Angella pauses, collects her thoughts. “Adora, what makes you think it’s the water supply? Then they could have easily infected other people.”

Adora frowns. “People would sound like that all the time back in the Horde; it might be less infecting the water and more just contaminating it. Which I think is the same thing? Never mind.” She shakes her head. “The point is that they’re probably just focusing on taking Bow out for now, since he’s so valuable to u—to the Rebellion.”

Ah. Angella caught that slip. Perhaps Adora is not as worried about the Horde as she is that it may be Catra’s doing; it would most certainly explain the holes in her logic. Angella has been witness to enough of Adora’s impassioned rants about the Horde’s newest Force Captain that she is almost certain if she took an idle guess as to the woman’s favourite colour she’d get it right. Angella sighs. “I will have the water checked out to ease your worries, but I’m sure there’s a less insidious reason Bow’s voice has been cracking so often.”

At this, Adora’s anxious expression goes slack. “Really?”

And Angella had thought she was finished with the puberty talk. “Adora. Did the Horde ever teach you about…” she comes up with a hundred different ways to end this phrase, ranging from diplomatic to crass, and goes with, “…Growing up?”

“Well, they trained us to be soldiers,” says Adora after a stunned moment, taken aback and uncertain now. “Your Majesty, where are you going with this?”

“Bear with me. When the voices of the people in the Horde started cracking, at what age would you say it generally started?”

“At what age…” Adora’s brows furrow. She hadn’t known what a birthday was, Angella had heard from Glimmer, but surely she’d know how ages worked. “I think maybe ten? Or. Or maybe twelve. Or eleven—I don’t know.”

“Right. Well.” Angella brings her hands together to fortify herself. “Adora, those ages are when one typically begins puberty,” she says, as dignified as she can manage. Explaining this isn’t new to her, of course. Being mother to Glimmer, she’d had to assuage her worries when Bow’s voice first began breaking. Focusing on the bright side, which is that chances are high there is no real crisis to manage, she continues, “Which begins one’s transition from being a child to a teenager.”

“…Yes?”

“Bow is in that age group, as I’m sure you know,” says Angella, serenely. “and typically for some people puberty comes with one’s voice cracking when they speak. This comes hand in hand with their voice becoming deeper.”

“So what you’re saying is… Bow is going through _puberty._ ”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why his voice is cracking? That’s why everyone else’s voice cracked?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Adora is silent for a few moments, deliberating this. “Why doesn’t mine or Glimmer’s, then? Crack as, uh, much as his?”

“Having your voices crack to such an extreme extent is not something that happens to everyone during puberty.”

“Right. Uh, right, yeah, you, uh, said that. Already.” Now Adora just looks slightly embarrassed. “Sorry to bother you with this, your Majesty.”

“It’s no trouble,” Angella assures her. Honestly, while this was unexpected, Angella is glad to have filled Adora in on what the Horde had deemed unimportant despite it being a _highly important_ part of one’s life. “If you’d like to learn more, you are more than welcome to the castle library.”

“Of course,” says Adora, flashing her a smile. “Thank you. I’ll be, uh, going now.”

Adora makes to leave, pauses, then quickly turns back to Angella and bows. She takes her leave proper afterward, awkwardly bringing the doors back together and shutting them.

Sighing, Angella lets her shoulders droop. No doubt the guards hadn’t come into the throne room because they’d heard her explaining to Adora the bare bones of what puberty is. She can hardly blame them, she thinks. How awkward.

Voices and footsteps begin to sound outside the doors, coming closer, and Angella makes her way back to the throne, mentally readying herself for problems bigger than what she had just dealt with. _Honestly,_ the fact that the Horde churns out decent soldiers with such horrible, scattered education is something that will endlessly fascinate and frustrate her. Adora shouldn’t have jumped to the worst conclusions possible simply from hearing something as everyday and normal as Bow’s voice cracking. Angella will see to it that no child in her Kingdom will ever be left without the means of education on a major part of their life, if at least to avoid a situation like this from repeating itself.

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this real quick and without a beta bc i was talkin 2 m friend about this n she started makin a comic n i was like. oh now i Gotta write this.  
> EDIT; shes finished it lol go look!! https://twitter.com/shayartz/status/1232208657950969856  
> for added context it's like six am in the morning and th reason adora was w bow at such an ungodly hour is bc they + glimmer were havin a sleepover


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